"But in LATIN (what i was taught in school), ae is 'i.' "
If you mean long "I" (as in the English word "eye"), I learned the same in my Latin studies. This "classic-Latin" pronunciation is different from the Italianate or "church Latin" more commonly used nowadays. "V" was pronounced like English "W", "C" was always hard like English "K," and so on. E.g., "Julius Caesar" was pronounced "YOO lee uhs KY sahr."
How do we know how Romans spoke two millennia ago? We can't know absolutely, but scholars can make pretty good guesses based on hints like rhymes in poetry and cross-referencing to other languages such as Greek. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_s..._pronunciation for more than you ever wanted to know about classical Latin pronunciation. ;-)
But most westerners pronounce that glyph as "EE" nowadays. And one of this, of course, explains why Sony prepended the AE diphthong to the name of their product, of course. It could be an attempt to evoke the long "E" sound, as in "e-Reader"...or perhaps it's just another instance of Japanglish (
http://www.jun-gifts.com/others/japa...japanglish.htm).